My August 2026 monthly round up

I did a fair bit of travelling in August. The month started with Cathy and I making a last minute overnight trip to Kent (via Oxford). We stayed near Whitstable, had an evening in Herne Bay, before briefly popping into Canterbury to pick up some new art we had bought online. 

Herne Bay sunset

Canterbury museum

We really liked the places we visited, and would like to return to that bit of the world for a proper holiday sometime. (And to go back to the museum when the Smallfilms gallery is open!)

I also spent a weekend in Shrewsbury, which included a trip with my mum on the Shrewsbury Town supporter's coach to Birkenhead to see Tranmere v Shrewsbury. I'm going to post a separate football review of the month, so you can read more about it there. But on the Sunday I went feeding ducks before church with my sister-in-law and an assortment of niblings.

Cathy and I had another road trip and just about stayed in Cymru this time when we met up with Cathy's aunt and uncle in Monmouth one weekend.

At the top of the Cynon valley, I went on the Tower Zipwire with Sara - my ride down was a birthday gift. I've already blogged about it, complete with video. 

There was another delayed birthday gift this month because I spent my Lego Store gift voucher that Connor gave me for my birthday. I bought the new set of Derpy the tiger from K-Pop Demon Hunters on the day it was released and built the set the same evening! He's fab. (Thanks Sara and Connor for being so generous!)

In the evening of the solar eclipse, Cathy and I went out onto The Marl (the big park near us) to experience it. You can't tell much was happening in this selfie with the sun.

In politics, our local Plaid Cymru branch is looking ahead to the council elections next year. We have started going out on some fact-finding canvassing, with sessions on the eastern and northern edges of the "South Cardiff" area. It's been fun knocking doors in the sunshine, and I hope we get good weather into September as well!

I went to seven football matches in August, but I think that's enough games to merit their own post! Check back tomorrow (or the day after).

And in case you missed it:

• My book of the month was Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis
• My album of the month was Sanguivore by Creeper
• This month's Blood Bowl game saw my first ever win for the Norse Team (and some fierce snacks!)
• Our street got resurfaced - but there was a twist!
• I acquired another philatelic passport (this time from Japan) for my collection 
• I also bought some new action figures that were a homage to Action Force 

Post-Christmas December round up

As it's New Year's Eve, I thought I'd round up the month's activity before launching into the year-end posts. 

I covered the first three weeks of the month in a previous post. My final day in work was Monday 22nd. On "Christmas Eve Eve" (the 23rd) we headed up to Shrewsbury and we stayed until "Boxing Day Boxing Day" (the 27th).

Christmas Eve morning, we went with my brother and three niblings to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol in the cinema. I don't think I've seen it on a proper cinema screen since it was released in the early 90s. It's a film that seems to get better with age. It was only the second time my youngest niece had been to the cinema. The film was a bit long for her, but she did very well at not being too bored. 

Later on Christmas Eve I went with my brother to the midnight communion service in the village Anglican church. We have done this as 'brother-time' for a few years now, with a stop in the pub on the way, and it's something I look forward to as part of the Christmas experience.

My sister and family drove all the way from Edinburgh to spend Christmas Day with us. We managed to fit 8 people round my mum's dining table for Christmas dinner. 

Auntie Cathy and Scottish niblings 

Mum's Christmas Cake

There were some exciting presents.

I will be blogging about this!

And some family members were completely tuckered out by it all!

On Boxing Day we had another brotherly outing as the two of us went to a local derby football match - Shawbury United v Haughmond FC in the United Counties League. Haughmond play on the north edge of Shrewsbury and Shawbury is less than 10 miles north of Shrewsbury so the two clubs are in close proximity. 

I was impressed by the set up at Shawbury. They had a nice clubhouse and a lovely pitch. The Haughmond Ultras (4 pre-teen boys with a flag and a drum) had ensconced themselves in one of the small stands and kept up a noise throughout. They went home happy, having seen their team win 3-1. 

I've been fortunate enough to be off work during betwixtmas, so have had a relaxing few days since coming home, sorting some life admin and things. Today (New Year's Eve) I went to my final football match of 2025, watching Barry lose away at Briton Ferry. 

I went with my friend Paul and we arrived to find the pitch was still very frosty in places. Kick off was moved back an hour in the hope the pitch would thaw out enough to be playable. It passed the pitch inspection but Barry will wish it hadn't as they were second best all game and lost 2-1. They also had two penalties given against them, with goalkeeper George Ratcliffe saving both of them! 

Frosty pitch!

Moonrise over Briton Ferry

And that concludes a busy December!

Miles and memories - happenings in March

A dragon for St David's Day! 

Cathy and I covered lots of miles in March. I had a couple of days off work because we had an appointment at the specialist clinic in Cambridge (we have been heading over there annually for about six years now, pandemics notwithstanding). This year we decided to go via Shrewsbury and see Mum on Mother's Day weekend. I went to church with her (and most of the rest of the family) on Mother's Day and got to say hello to lots of old friends. 

Our Mother's Day dinner plans were thrown awry by the restaurant phoning up to tell us they were having a software problem so they couldn't process any food orders or payments. So we ended up with a stack of takeaway pizzas instead. In a weird way, it was a nice reflection of how resilient we are as a family that we can adapt to a situation and still have fun.

Mentioning resilience makes me think of how we have adjusted as a family following the loss of my dad. This March marked the fifth anniversary of his sudden death. I found myself thinking of him quite a bit. I went to a Wales 'C' International football match on the day itself - I think he would have liked that. 

On the Monday after Mother's Day we set out to Cambridge. We had a trouble-free journey and after checking in at our hotel we went for a little trip to Newmarket. It's a horsey place with lots of horsey businesses and also a cracking toy shop!

After our hospital appointment on the Tuesday we headed home to Cardiff. We stopped in Oxford and saw our friend Ella on the way. 

We got home about midnight. The next morning I was on the 7.23am train to London for an all day meeting. I was also incubating a cold. Gotta admit, I wasn't at my best in that meeting. 

Before I came home I met up with my baseball buddy Gawain in an American sports-themed restaurant under Waterloo Station, in a warren of railway arches covered in graffiti. 

Selfie on the way to Waterloo

Meeting up had seemed like a great idea when we made the plan. By the time I got there though I was beyond exhausted. However, Gawain is very good company and we had a great two hours chatting before I had to get the train home.

All that excitement was just in five days. The rest of the month has been a bit of a blur. I made it to my first Keep Grangetown Tidy litter-pick of the year. Fiona who organises it took a picture as proof.

I also made my first foray to the cinema in 2024, watching Dune Part 2 (which I blogged about here). And we went to our first gig of the year - to see Tony Wright at the Metropole Theatre in Abertillery. It was on Easter Sunday, so we took him some Easter eggs, which Cathy presented to him afterwards.

We even had time this month for some ice creams in Victoria Park with the Wootten family. Spring is here. Summer is coming!

Recap of the Month - May 2023

Random selfie of the month - Salisbury Cathedral cloister

May was a very busy month and I barely managed to blog. I missed writing my traditional Star Wars Day post. I was able to post on my blog about Tony Gwynn's baseball cards on Tony's Birthday - it was the first post in months on that neglected project. But apart from a snack of the month, that was it. 

So, what have I been doing? Well, Cathy and I have mainly been trying to sort out the stamp collection my Dad left behind. The collection is in several boxes and lots of it was still unsorted, over four years after he passed away suddenly. We had a date at the end of the month to take them to be valued. Although that turned out to be a waste of time, it was good to have a date to work towards. Deadlines focus the mind and all that. Plus it gave me the opportunity to visit Salisbury. 

After my disappointing trip to Salisbury, I contacted another stamp dealer who said they could collect the stamps from my Mum's house in Shrewsbury. So, we reloaded all the stamps back into the car and I set off for an unexpected bank holiday Monday trip. Mum was pleased to see me and her doggo, Fred, was almost equally as pleased!

In work I have been serving my notice period. We had a great event up in Merthyr Tydfil, which was my main focus for the first half of the month. Now I am starting to work on planning a handover and identifying what I can wrap up before I leave so I don't leave too many half finished projects behind. 

I went on my first Keep Grangetown Tidy litter pick of the year. Among the haul of rubbish on nearby streets I found a TV and an abandoned fish tank. 

Those were probably the most unusual items I picked up. We have started collecting discarded vapes for recycling as well, as the lithium batteries in them can prove a fire risk in rubbish lorries. So they went in a separate bag. Our litter picking crew found several, which adds to my theory that smokers are litterbugs, even when they are vaping instead.

Near the end of the month, Marco, our trusty and slightly battered VW Polo, successfully passed its MOT, so our little red car was clear to carry on motoring. Just as well, given I was ferrying stamps around the country!

Cathy and I had a cinema trip to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3. I've enjoyed the Guardians movies ever since the first one came out almost a decade ago, as well as the contribution the Guardians have made to other Marvel movies, especially Thor: Love and Thunder last year. This film focused on my favourite character, Rocket Raccoon, and gave all the characters a satisfying character arc as this particular part of the Marvel franchise came to an end. 

And in the lobby I got to see what it would be like to be a Ken doll!

And even though Barry Town's season ended at the end of April, the football season continued right to the end of May. I saw six matches, including my first 0-0 of the season in a game that went to a penalty shoot out after extra time. I had not seen a 0-0 for well over a year - a run of 75 matches. 

I also watched five Cardiff Draconians games as they battled to escape the relegation zone in their league. 

The Dracs survived by winning their final game, against the team who were one point ahead of them and who ended up getting relegated instead. I was really pleased the Dracs stayed up and look forward to visiting the Orange Llama Stadium again next season. 

An unexpected return to the ACCA

Just when everyone, including me, assumed the Annual Christmas Card Audit was over for another year, my Mum surprised me by giving me a bag full of all her Christmas cards to look through. It included this one that features the Old Market Hall in The Square in Shrewsbury, which I thought was apt to include given that's where Mum lives and where all this sample of cards came from.

I’m not going to do a full audit of Mum's cards, but I am going to use the bundle of cards to increase the size of the data sample in my quest to find the most popular Bible verse to feature on Christmas cards.

There were 71 cards in the bag my Mum gave me. 10 cards had Bible verses, which is about about 14% of the cards. That’s a much higher ratio of cards with Bible verses than in the cards that Cathy and I received this year (which you can read about here).

Unlike the cards with Bible verses on that cathy and I received this year, there were a couple of lines from the Nativity stories in the gospels included in Mum’s cards. But conversely, there were also no verses from the Psalms in Mum’s selection, unlike on the cards that Cathy and I received.

In order of appearance in the Bible, these are the verses. Isaiah was popular, particularly chapter 9, verse 6 which appeared on two cards, with different bits of the verse selected for inclusion.

Isaiah 9.6 “For to us a child is born, a Son is given.”

Isaiah 9.6b “His name will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

That first bit featured on a card we received this year too!

There was a verse from later on in Isaiah as well.

Isaiah 60.1 “Arise shine, for your light has come, and the Glory of the LORD rises upon you.”

Moving into the New Testament, three of the four gospels were represented by a verse each.

Matthew 2.1 “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked ‘Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.’” (Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was on a card featuring the three wise men.)

Luke 2.14 “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, goodwill toward men.”

John 1.14 “The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

I’ve written essays on the prologue of the gospel of John twice in my life – when I was doing Religious Studies at A Level and then when I was doing my New Testament Studies module on my theology degree. I’d go on a limb and say it’s probably the most intriguing part of the New Testament. Previously another verse from this section of John’s gospel has featured on cards but this is the first time verse 14 has been counted.

And then we finish up with some verses from the random tiny books towards the end of the New Testament. None of these verses had featured previously in these audits. 

Titus 2.11 “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.”

1 John 4.9 “By this God’s love was revealed to us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.”

Jude 1.2 – “I pray that God will greatly bless you with kindness, peace and love!” – this appeared in 2 cards in Mum’s bundle, having never appeared in cards we have received. Both cards were the same design, from the same charity (The Leprosy Mission) so I’m only counting it once for audit purposes.

So, the new revised totals of verses on cards are as follows:

1. Luke 2.11 (sometimes with a bit of Luke 2.10 attached) – 5
2. Isaiah 9.6 - 4
3. Psalm 33.21 - 3
4. John 1.9 - 2
5. Psalm 46.10; Psalm 139.11-12; Isaiah 40.5; Isaiah 60.1; Matthew 2.1;  Matthew 2.11; Luke 2.4-5; Luke 2.7; Luke 2.14; John 1.14; John 8.12; 2 Corinthians 9.15; Titus 2.11; 1 John 1.5; 1 John 4.9; Jude 1.2- all with 1

The big winner after counting this sample is Isaiah 9.6, which moves into second place in the table, leapfrogging Psalm 33.21. I was surprised that all the other Bible verses were brand new to the audit sample!

Seagull terrorists and subzero goalfest - the January Birthdays weekend

I was in Shrewsbury over the weekend as my brother and mother celebrate their birthdays on subsequent days, both of which were on the weekend. I had managed to co-ordinate a work trip to Llandudno Junction on the Friday beforehand, which worked well in terms of visiting family. 

I arrived in Llandudno Junction at lunchtime, with half an hour to spare before my meeting, so went to Tesco for a meal deal. I sat in my car and opened my packet of Popchips. There was a thump and I looked up to see I had a visitor!

The cheeky bird even jiggled my windscreen wiper to get my attention. When I finished my lunch, I started the engine and the seagull didn't move. I started to reverse out of the space and the seagull moved his legs to brace, like a surfer. 

At this point I wondered if I had now acquired a seagull shaped bonnet ornament, but thankfully after a couple of seconds he decided he didn't fancy car-surfing any more and flapped off. 

Later Cathy sent me a news article from Wales Online about seagulls terrorising Tesco shoppers in Llandudno Junction. I can't say for certain that it's the very same seagull in the picture accompanying the news story, but it could well be! 

I headed over to Shrewsbury after I had finished my appointments for the day and had a great weekend with my family. This included a rousing 5-1 victory for Shrewsbury Town against Cambridge United despite the bitter cold on the Saturday and meals out on both days to celebrate the birthday boy and girl.

Birthday boy (and son)

Birthday girl (and son)

I even had time to play a bit of back garden football with my eldest nephew, Zac, which sadly ended prematurely when the ball entered the garden hedge and came back out with a thorny stick attached to it. The hiss of escaping air as the thorns were removed was summed up by Zac when he said "Well that ball's a goner!" And that was the end of the game. Being able to go back into the warm was only a minor consolation. 

A week in the 'Shire

The Shire in question being Shropshire. Originally we had planned to stay with my mum for a week and then realised that my brother and family needed to share the space as well, while building work happened at their house next door. So at short notice, we booked a holiday apartment in Oswestry, not too far away.

We liked Oswestry, particularly the very tricky minigolf course in Cae Glas Park. 

We also had pizzas at the Stonehouse Brewing Co with some friends who live nearby. We sat at the tables in the orchard where the brewers grow their cider apples. We didn't eat in the wig-wam at the back of the orchard that Cathy liked. 

Oswestry is almost right on the border between England and Wales, and we had some days out either side of the boundary. On the English side we went with my mum to the Jackfield Tile Museum in the Ironbridge Gorge. I think I have now ticked off all the museums in the Gorge now. Jackfield is a mix of art gallery tracking the different styles and fashion for tiles, and explaining the industrial process of tile production that took place on that site. 

Here's a picture of Cathy with a tiled frieze of the young Princess Elizabeth with the little Welsh cottage that was her playhouse gifted by the people of Wales. The mural was saved from a hospital in London that was being redeveloped.

On the Welsh side of the border we went to Llangollen on a baking hot day. We had a bit of an explore, including nosing around the heritage railway.

I have a soft spot for the Llangollen Railway. Somewhere I have a certificate saying that I have bought a foot of track - it was a fundraising initiative back in the 1980s. The railway ran into financial trouble during the pandemic and is now run by volunteers again. They didn't have a steam engine on duty - I'm not sure they still have one on their manifest - but we weren't taking a ride anyway. I had a cup of tea and a scone in the platform coffee shop instead.

Our proximity to Shrewsbury meant I got to go to two Shrewsbury matches - a league defeat against Accrington and a cup win against Carlisle. For the latter we were in the safe standing section behind the ground. It was the first time my niece and nephew had stood at a football game. My niece was initially very unimpressed with the idea of not having a seat, but the kids both liked jumping around as Shrewsbury scored a late winner directly in front of us.

Before the Accrington game, my nephew got to meet a Shrewsbury legend.

Our week was picked to coincide with the Shrewsbury Flower Show, which was always a huge deal in the town when I was younger. The show wasn't held in the past two years, and was on a smaller scale than I remember it from 30 years or so ago. Given the heatwave and tinder dry conditions, they had to cancel the evening fireworks display. 

The flower arranging competition was incredible to look at, although reading the judges comments, competitive flower arranging is savage! Here's the winner of the theme ' fireworks', which were the only fireworks in the show.

But my favourite horticulture on display is the fruit and veg competitions. Carrots that are so long they don't fit on the table, onions the size of your head. That sort of thing. Incredible stuff.

Not all veg comes out perfect. But even mutants can be winners.

And if flower arranging isn't your thing, how about fruit and veg arranging? This crab made from red peppers was a worthy winning entry.

Because the show was smaller than we expected we decided not to go back on the second day. Instead we drove home in the heatwave and tried our best not to melt on the way. Thus concluded our highly enjoyable week.